Coachella bans selfie sticks and ‘narcissists’

Coachella has put a dent in the dreams of punters looking to take the ultimate selfie this year – the Californian festival has banned selfie sticks and narsisstics (sic). We presume they mean narcissists, which may prove problematic – aren't the vast majority of Coachella's attendees living, breathing self-obsessed embodiments of everything desperately wrong with our generation?

I don't think I'm a narcissist, but drones and drugs are a no-no and tailgating in the car park is forbidden so with a heavy heart I've "closed tab" on the Buy Tickets part of Coachella's website.

I suppose banning selfie sticks is OK, although really I don't see the problem with them. Once you've come to terms with the fact that you love taking pictures of yourself, putting them on Instagram and sitting back to watch the likes roll in, you may as well make the selfie the best it can be, which is where the selfie stick comes in handy. The backlash against them is understandable though- – there can be no disputing that you look completely awful while getting in everyone's way to take a photo that in that same second is being replicated by thousands of other people in slightly different locations, using slightly different hashtags.

But banning narcissists is going to be extremely difficult. Firstly, how do you prove on the way in that somebody is a narcissist? They look like a narcissist, you might get the sense that they are a narcissist, but Narcissistic Personality Disorder is a condition that must be diagnosed by a specialist – even family physicians or general practioners aren't trained to make this type of psychological diagnosis, so asking security to figure it out ain't gonna work unless they're all mental health professionals too.

Let's just take it as read that everybody that exhibits some signs of narcissism once on site. It's a long running joke that nobody goes to Coachella for the music, they go to take selfies and hit Instagram with a photo-centric portrayal of how Absolutely Fucking Awesome their lives are. Last year, Instagram went down during Coachella, leading to speculation that she sheer volume of selfies being uploaded caused the site to crash.

Now that these new rules and regulations have been announced, we're expecting that confusion will reign at Coachella 2015. Everybody wants to take a selfie to prove that they were, but will such behaviour be declared narcisstic? Will they be kicked off site?

I'm picturing Drake playing to an empty field after security has removed all the narcissists, who are now stood outside in the car park taking selfies and posting them on Instagram with the caption: "Coachella was so fucking rad this year".

In other selfie news, some people have been heavily criticised for posing for selfies at the East Village gas explosion site in New York that injured 25 and left two people missing. Notes are being left advising people that "this is a tragedy not a tourist attraction". Jesus, what is wrong with us?

Liked this? Head here for more on selfies:

Spoof Apple campaign takes iPhone 6 selfies to new levels

Men who take selfies more likely to exhibit psychopathic traits

Don't take selfies during the solar eclipse